Eat my way to Hong Kong - 250 steps to Big Buddha

Yes I know Big Buddha sounds kinda literal translation. In fact, they call it Giant Buddha on the official tourism website. But when we were there, we saw the sign "This way to Big Buddha". No, we didn't bring any post-it note to correct it.







The Giant Buddha is next to the Po Lin Monastery. The whole place is supposed to be religious and quiet. But no, after a place is labelled as "tourist attraction", be prepared for bus loads of noise.

The steps do look scary from the bottom, but the way up was actually not that tiring. In fact we counted 250 steps, which is even less than the 272 steps in Batu Cave!



The view at the top is indeed beautiful. Besides the never-ending stream of tourists, there are 6 other smaller statues up there, but the view of the mountains in the far is the view to look out for.







You can actually get below the Giant Buddha where it houses some shrines and souvenir stores. Oh, Anita Mui's shrine is there as well so you can pay her a respect if desired. But I don't really care for the souvenir shops there. I mean, isn't there kind of not right to do business beneath the Giant Buddha?







Back in Kowloon, we went to the Honeymoon Dessert Shop to take a break. They are famous for their mango and durian desserts, so we ordered a mango pomelo sago dessert which was refreshing and filled with juicy sweet mangoes, a mango pancake with super light cream and silky soft crepe and more juicy sweet mangoes, and a black rice in almond paste. The black rice tastes like our o-bi-bei but with more texture due to the little corn bits in it. The almond paste was really good too, sweet and fragrant, and not powderly at all.

My friend was saying that this dessert shop has a branch in Vivocity in Singapore too, but I wonder whether the quality is just as good.



This has got to be our most expensive dinner in the whole trip. It's chili crab time! Who says only Singapore got chili crab? We walked to the famous Qiao Tei Chili Crab which is literally translated to Chili Crab Under The Bridge. And the restaurant is indeed under a flyover...

Though it was already pretty late for dinner, the restaurant was still super packed! We even had to share table with a Hong Kong couple and a Japanese couple! We ordered a small crab at HKD300+ (which is about SGD50+) which was just nice for two. Unlike our creamy chili crab, the Hong Kong chili crab is actually fried dry with minced crispy chili garlic bits. The garlic bits are a bit too spicy for me, but they are real delicious and I have to eat them with white rice even if I must drink up my tea!

We also ordered a plate of mantis prawns (don't know why the locals call them "peeing prawns"!) which also turned out to be fried with minced crispy chili garlic bits! But the strange thing is that these chili garlic bits taste different from the ones in the crab! Oh well, never mind since they are just as delicious in their own way! My only complain is that the mantis prawns are rather small and not very meaty...





After the chili seafood dinner, I packed a herbal jelly back to cool my body down. I heard that these herbal jelly in Hong Kong are made with real tortoise shells...